Showing posts with label writer's life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer's life. Show all posts

Saturday, December 02, 2023

Life Happening

 I'm really, really late today but I want to post because I missed my last Friday. I was busy with my day job (teaching at university) and lost track of the schedule. Today I wanted to get a post up. Except last night, I felt a small jab of pain in my eye. It was gone in a second, but it was in the same eye that I saw an ophthalmologist about back in spring. My GP referred me when I called her about the bloodshot eye had seen when I happened to glance in the mirror I was passing. He determined that I had a fairly common broken vein in my eye. It looked and sounded scary, but it wasn't painful and would probably resolve itself. 

He could see my eyes were dry and asked if I had ever been told that. I said I but I hadn't used artificial tears since the wave of recalls of contaminated eye drops.  Even though my artificial tears had not been among the brand or type of drop in the several recalls, I had been spooked enough to stop using them. We agreed it might be safe to start again. But this morning I woke up with both eyes itching and I forgot about my post because I was busy getting my dog to daycare and then calling for an appointment to see what's happening. After I'd gotten in for Monday, I turned to emails I needed to respond to and then picking up dog and feeding pets and self and responding to more emails and I'm finally here now.

I had intended to write a longer post about the topic my Type M colleagues were discussing recently -- muddled middles. I've been dealing with that, too. It isn't usually a problem that paralyzes me for long periods as I'm writing because I'm a plotter. But this time I'm writing a historical thriller and trying to plunge in and see where it gone. With that in mind, I have focused on the characters and their goals and motivations rather than extensive outlining. That worked until I got to the middle and realized I wasn't sure where to insert my parallel murder investigation by my Albany police detectives happening in the months leading up to the presidential election in their present. Their "present" because my two Albany books were set in the alternate near-future when I wrote them, but now are in the recent past. In their present a presidential election is approaching and in the first book I had Howard Miller, a character who turned out to bear a striking resemblance to one of the real-world candidates that we all now know too well. In Book 2, people connected to him had McCabe and her family under surveillance because her father is a retired journalist and had been doing some research on the candidate's activities. In my third book --when I get to it -- I intend to deal with that, but meanwhile I want to use the characters as the investigators of the murder in my historical thriller.

I think I may have mentioned this complex structure before. But I didn't realize last time I mentioned how difficult it would be to deal with the "muddled middle" when I can literally flip a coin to decide when a scene should appear. Knowing that has slowed me down to a crawl. I have gone back to my preferred method of outlining and that has taken me down a path that didn't occur to me when I was attempting to write faster. 

I'm just hoping that whatever is happening with my eyes is no more serious than an allergy or something I've been using on my face. I want to get my pile of term papers read and grades submitted and then settle into summer writing. By then I should have outlined enough to find my way out of my maze.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

A day in a writer's life

It's that time in a writer's life– at least in my writerly life– when I am trying to inhabit two worlds. I have been researching THE ANCIENT DEAD, the fourth book in the Amanda Doucette series, for a few months now, and am at the stage where I have written the first three tentative scenes as well as created a vague outline of a few more to follow. And this morning, I am embarking on a two-week location scouting trip to the badlands and prairies of Alberta, where the book is set.

I've often said there is no substitute for standing in the spot where the characters stand, breathing in the scents, listening to the sounds, and seeing how the sun plays across the land. As well, by talking to locals and visiting museums and towns, you uncover all sorts of tantalizing ideas and details that can take the plot in unpredictable directions. It's one reason why I need to go now, while the story is still in its infancy and essentially unformed. (The other reason is called winter). I am really looking forward to figuring out what this book is going to be about at its core! I have the setting, some conflicts, and a buried body waiting to be discovered, but not the mystery behind it all.

But for the past month I have also been trying to line up fall promotional plans for PRISONERS OF HOPE, the third Amanda Doucette novel, due out in three weeks. I've been on the phone to potential launch and book signing venues and emailing back and forth to my publicist about posters, etc. And today the whole enterprise felt much more real when the UPS driver delivered my box of author copies to the door. Yay! The book is in one piece and they spelled my name right!

Switching gears between creative writing and promotional planning is a challenge. Therefore, as much as possible, I try to split up my day. The mornings, when the brain is hopefully fresher, I devote a few hours to writing. I write longhand, and make a right mess while doing it, but it's the most powerful way I know to call up my muse. Curling up in a chair with a cup of coffee at my side, pen in hand and pad of paper in my lap, seems to connect me to my familiar writer self who's been doing this for over sixty years, long before word processors and computers came on the scene.

I usually try to complete at least one scene every morning, so that I can fully engage in the scene and imagine it from beginning to end. Often by the end of that scene I have a good idea of what scene will come next. But I put the writing on the shelf and leave that for the next day.

Instead I celebrate that accomplishment by taking a break. I eat lunch, walk the dogs, swim, or whatever, before settling down in the afternoon to deal with social media, emails, phone calls, and PR writing. This can often take several hours. Then it's unwind and glass of wine time! Of course, there are often other obligations, family and friends, or commitments, but on a day without outside commitments, that's what I aim for. While I am on my research trip, this schedule will blown apart and I'll be lucky to get any scene writing done. But my mind will be churning and storing things up. All to the good.

Now for a little bit of BSP at the end of this blog - part of my PR activities. Here are the dates of the two launch parties I have set up for PRISONERS OF HOPE:

Ottawa launch: The Clocktower Brew Pub in Westbooro, October 16 at 7 - 9 pm, shared with Vicki Delany, who's launching THE CAT OF THE BASKERVILLES

Toronto launch: Sleuth of Baker Street, November 3 at 2:30-4 pm

Those of you within driving distance of either place, come on down to the celebration, and bring a friend! It's free and fun.